Iowa Could Finish 12-0 And Be Looking In From the Outside.

That’s right. Iowa could finish this year perfect and still be watching the BCS Championship Game from home. Everybody can thank the AP and Coaches Polls for this. The AP and Harris Polls make up two thirds of the BCS rankings and the Computer rankings make up the other third.

Iowa is currently ranked 11th in the AP, 11th in the Harris, and 12th in the Coaches Polls. However the Hawkeyes are ranked much higher in the computer rankings. They are also going to be ranked 10th in the BCS if it came out today.

There are several reasons this can happen. They include a poor Conference ranking for the Big Ten (6th in the Sagarin rankings), Iowa’s schedule only having two or three ranked teams in it, Iowa’s beating Penn State is being forgotten, the AP and Coaches Polls have to be turned in by Saturday or Sunday night, or that the AP and Coaches Polls are turning into a popularity contest instead of the true value they are supposed to be judging.

That’s right a popularity contest and Iowa is not a popular liked school in these polls. Every year I see a team that gets the short end because they are not as popular as some of the other schools in the polls. There are also teams in the Top 10 that should be dropped lower than Iowa. One of the teams is fifth ranked Boise State. The Broncos barely beat Oregon (19-8) and last night they barely beat Tulsa (28-21). Iowa has a better overall record and schedule than Boise State. Did everybody forget that Iowa beat South Carolina last year 31-10 in the Capital One Bowl? South Carolina was a top six school in the SEC Conference last year.

The computer ranks have Iowa ranked as high as first (Colley Matrix) and as low as ninth (Sagarin). The other Computer rankings for Iowa are as follows: Wolfe doesn’t release rankings until the 18th of October, fourth Massey Ratings, eighth in the Billingsley Report, and third in the Jeff Anderson & Chris Hester Ratings.

The best thing about the computer rankings is that they are not a popularity contest. They crunch the numbers based on performance.

Ever time Iowa is talked about, they keep bringing up Iowa only beat FCS team Northern Iowa 17-16 in the last seconds of the game. Has anybody look at UNI since then. UNI is currently ranked fourth in the FCS Polls and is one of the favorites to win the FCS this year. UNI also have blown out every opponent since playing Iowa. UNI has scored as low as 30 points to as high as 66 points since the Iowa- UNI game.

So stop bringing up this game as a negative against Iowa. I’m pretty sure that UNI can beat a few teams in the top 25 as well as a couple teams in the top 10 in the FBS polls.

Just give Iowa a chance before shooting them down as a National Contender as well as a Big ten Contender. I hope after the next two games (at Wisconsin, at Michigan State) everybody will start seeing what Iowa fans have been seeing the last few games.